Ancient Africa and Asia are the birthplaces of human beings.Although separated by vast oceans, the ancient civilizations of Africa and the ancient civilizations of the Chinese nation have the same age, splendor and resemblance to each other, and both have made outstanding contributions to human civilization and development. The great apes in Tenenburg, Kenya, the Lantian Man in Shaanxi and the Zhoukoudian Man in Beijing, the farming culture in the Nile River Basin and the Yellow River Basin, the towering pyramids and the majestic Great Wall, the stone city still standing in North Africa and the well-preserved Bingmayong in Xi'an, Medicine, mathematics, and the four great inventions of the Chinese ancestors (paper, printing, gunpowder, and compass), which were wise in the Pharaoh era and are still full of mystery today...these are all treasures of human civilization, which shows the greatness of the people of the two places. Vitality, creativity and cohesion.

As early as the second century BC, there are records in historical records that the Chinese people and the African people began to understand each other.During the prosperous Tang and Song Dynasties, China and Africa established a maritime "Silk Road" for communication.Du Huan of the Tang Dynasty was the first Chinese who visited Africa and left written records.He went to Central Asia and West Asia and arrived in North Africa. After returning to China, he wrote "Jing Xing Ji" about what he saw and heard in Africa.In the historical records of the Tang Dynasty, there are records of African blacks coming to China. In contemporary times, black Tao Yong was unearthed from a tomb in the southern suburbs of Xi'an.In the Yuan Dynasty, Wang Dayuan traveled to Africa, as far as Morocco in the northwest corner of Africa. At that time, the Chinese regarded this place as "the place where the sun has disappeared".Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan known as one of the four great travelers in the Middle Ages, also came to China through India through hardships and went to the capital to meet the emperor.During the Ming Dynasty, economic and cultural exchanges between China and Africa developed further. The famous Sanbao eunuch Zheng He once led a fleet to the African continent four times. Hundreds of ships, it can be seen that its scale is already very grand and magnificent, and it can be called the largest ocean-going fleet in the world at that time.

Since the fifteenth century, with the opening of new sea routes, Western colonial countries have successively invaded Africa.The Portuguese fleet arrived at the coasts of Morocco, Ghana and other places successively, and the Portuguese colonists landed first and established colonies.Following the Portuguese invaders, there were more than a dozen Western colonialist countries, including Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Germany, and Italy, scrambling to be the first to invade Africa. Not to be outdone.Relying on the advantages of their fleet and guns, they are aggressive, you occupy a piece, I fight for a piece, and they divide their spheres of influence on the African continent, making most of Africa a colony or a dependent country.They frantically exploited and plundered Africa's rich natural resources, cruelly enslaved and persecuted African people, and wantonly plundered and traded black people as slaves.

Since the feudal dynasties of the Ming and Qing dynasties implemented a policy of seclusion, the sea routes between China and Africa in ancient times were gradually monopolized by Western colonists, and the contacts and traditional trade (caravan trade, fleet trade and Gunna trade) between China and Africa were destroyed.After the Opium War, Western powers invaded China, and China became a semi-feudal and semi-colonial society.In the early days when Portugal and the Netherlands invaded China, a large number of coastal residents of Fujian and Guangdong were plundered and enslaved by Western colonists, and brought to East Africa and Algeria.Beginning at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a large number of laborers were recruited by the colonists as "pigs" and shipped to African countries to do hard work, and their footprints spread all over Africa.Hard-working Chinese laborers participated in the construction of the first railway in Congo, the heart of Africa, and many people died on both sides of the roadbed.

Therefore, modern China and African countries suffered the common fate of Western colonialism, imperialist aggression and enslavement.The fighting Chinese people will feel joyful and encouraged by every struggle and every victory of the African people against imperialism and colonialism.The African people have gone through more than 500 years of long-term struggle against colonial rule and striving for national independence. In the middle of this century, the entire African continent has undergone tremendous changes. Before the Second World War, there were only three countries in Africa: Egypt, Ethiopia and Liberia. After the World War, one country after another broke free from colonial shackles and gained independence in the surging wave of national independence.

When the news of the founding of New China came, Nyerere, a famous African statesman who later became the president of Tanzania, commented, "The 400 million enslaved and oppressed Chinese people are the masters of their own country. The movement is a great encouragement.” The Central Committees of the Communist Parties of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco, which are striving for national independence, sent congratulatory messages to Mao Zedong on October 9 and 15 of that year respectively, believing that the victory of the Chinese people is a great contribution to the North African people’s opposition to French colonialism. The struggle for domination is a "powerful encouragement".On October 16, Paul Robertson, chairman of the African Affairs Committee, also called Mao Zedong to warmly congratulate the Chinese people on their new birth.

At the same time, the national independence and liberation movement in Africa is on the rise, Western colonial rule is falling apart, and Africa is awakening.In 1960, the "African Independence Year", among the more than 60 countries in Africa, 16 countries had achieved independence.Countries that have already become independent are also facing arduous tasks. They are vigorously developing their national economies and further consolidating their political independence by achieving economic independence.The African continent, which was regarded as dark and ignorant by the colonialists in the past, is playing an increasingly important role in international affairs and has increasingly become a force that cannot be ignored on the world political stage.

After the Bandung Asian-African Conference, with the establishment of diplomatic relations between New China and African independent countries, diplomats from New China successively came to independent countries in North Africa, West Africa and East Africa, which further promoted the friendly relationship between the Chinese people and the African people. develop.New China actively supported the national independence and liberation movements of African countries. Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai sent telegrams to congratulate and recognize the newly independent African countries, and New China entered the second period of establishing diplomatic relations.

On December 14, 1963, Premier Zhou Enlai led a delegation of the government of the People's Republic of China to set foot on the awakening African continent. It traveled hundreds of thousands of miles and visited ten African countries for the first time. , opened a new page in history.